Only the frightened scholar confines his studies to one discipline. Beyond his cloister sprawls a vast world of contradictions and considerations that cannot possibly be examined from inside his high academic walls. Wander forth scholars to the far-gone marketplaces of knowledge and their peddlers of strange goods. Modernity affords us numerous testaments to this spirit of intellectual wandering. I identify one above others, for it is March, or, to those in the profession, Social Work Month. Philosophy, history, psychology, sociology, economics, jurisprudence: a long list of wares in this particular bazaar. Social work encompasses these various fields, uniting those most virtuous humanities with the oftentimes crass and demystifying sciences. Yet, it is not a warped union. Empiricism and logic are not only found in the cruelly revealing studies of modernists, but also in Bacon, Hume, Kant, and others. Nothing implies the wrongness of science or its method in its own right. Merely its application to simplify the complicated, to make menial the grand; this is what must be denounced. As it is employed in social work, however, I have no complaints to advance. Restating the mission statement of fine institutions such as Chicago’s venerable School of Social Service Administration, proper social work combines theory and practice, each using the other as a basis for its effectiveness. Long have I professed the importance of the applicable philosophy; any thoughts that deal with this world should be applicable to it. Social work, as a discipline that advocates my belief, at the very least demonstrates its merit in this regard.

            In honor of the month, let us dedicate our inquiries to Addams’ quote solely in regards to her field. First, a hypothesis: Addams’ quote implies a process by which social work is conducted. An incomplete process, as presented, but a process nonetheless. This claim is readily proven as we will now embark on. Consider social works solely regarding ethics and actions. Surely social work consists of very little else aside from the two, as its ethics always dictate its actions. Ethics, however, accounts for the humanities side of social work, dealing with philosophy and internal matters of the mind. Social work, in no small part, is always informed by, and working with, evidence. Scientific research gathers a body of evidence which is equally important as ethics in dictating action. Let us thus expand Addams quote, that action expresses not only ethics, but also evidence. No one will fault Addams herself for this exclusion; after all, she was one of the mothers of evidence-based practice in social work. Considering her historical works and acquaintances, it is fully reasonable to infer this expansion of meaning. This being said, our process is not yet complete. Let us see the final aspect. If actions are the expression of ethics and evidence, what does action itself express itself towards? Clearly there must be an end in sight of an action. This end itself, while unquestionably guided by both the ethics and evidence, is a distinctive part of the process. While expression can be done for its own sake, as in all manner of artistry and literature, social work, a practical science, is not so intangible. Action, as an expression of a practical and tangible science, must maneuver to a practical and tangible end. Do not mistake me for insinuating that social work only pursues physical, concrete goals. This is an absurd generalization. I merely offer that social work pursues worldly goals that find worldly application to worldly entities. Proceed with this qualification in mind.

            There we have it, the process hinted at in Addams’ quote. In these terms, I shall rephrase it. In social work, ethics and evidence are expressed through action, this action being dedicated to an ethical and empirical end. Certainly there exist more nuanced definitions of social work, and I concede the inadequacies that this humble definition possesses. Admitting of this, however, it is a fair and just simplification of social work. It does not leave elements out. Rather, it packs all the elements into a few words. As such, we can consider it a reasonably operable definition. But how do we use this definition? Owing to the spirit of this month, it would be shameful to craft a procedural tool without testing and/or applying it to a suitably worldly end.

            Co-occurring with social work month is the University of Chicago Crime Lab competition. This University institution promises funding to an agency or agencies that draw up a feasible plan aimed at combating youth firearm violence in the city. This plan must account not only for the philosophical aspects of the problem, but must be similarly grounded in evidence and data. After implementing the winning program, Crime Lab intends to evaluate it for further empirical information. Returning to Addams’ quoted process, Crime Lab provides the ethics, evidence, and end for organizations, which then must come up with the action. Naturally, no one action will fully solve the problem, but through each individual one, Crime Lab can continually sharpen its evidence to move ever closer towards its end.

            Evidence and empiricism are a critical element of the social work process. Addams was fully correct in her assignation of research and data to proper social work. Actions intended to effect the tangible world should be born of that tangible world themselves. I present this by way of a disclaimer, as Bacon’s method and its subsequent applications are by no means to be derided or denounced as a whole. Social work, however, like so many other sciences in this modern world, runs a risk of forgetting its ethics. Prior to proceeding, let me clarify that by ethics and the term “ethical” I mean solely those intangible and inward principles governing human interaction; I do not use this term in the Christian sense of “good” or “virtuous.” Continuing, I do not imply that such sciences truly do sacrifice philosophical and ethical considerations in favor of empirical ones. Merely, these oftentimes abstruse and immaterial concepts risk becoming crushed in an avalanche of concrete facts and numbers. Intuition guides this argument. For those that read, or have read, modern sociological or ethnographic papers, or any comparably scientific document dealing with people and their interactions; would you not be shocked if the author quoted Smith’s moral theory? If you can imagine that, picture on further. Could that author quote Aristotle instead? Nietzsche? Camus? Could he get away with quoting more than one? Apply a similar line of inquiry to any number of other scientific materials; social scientists, to which social workers belong, shy away from such sources almost as a rule. Crime Lab requested that possible programs be supported with evidence. Can you conceive of a report being submitted that quoted solely from Hobbes and Rousseau?

            And yet, Hobbes and Rousseau masterfully discuss societal violence. Why are they and their kind so discounted amongst the social scientists? With such a vast body of empirical data at social work’s and social science’s disposal, perhaps it is time for these fields to crane their heads outside of their own gardens. Under no circumstances should this be done at the expense of their findings, but similarly, these findings should not be upheld at the expense of the ethics. Indeed, now we find ourselves back at the unmodified incarnation of Addams quote. Perhaps it was intentional that she left it at action and ethics. Evidence is unquestionably important, but it shall always be present. By highlighting the action and ethics, Addams may have been suggesting that we social scientists not lose sight of our inward impressions of humanity, nor the impressions belonging to those men of genius who came before us. On a more radical tract, Addams use of “sole” may indeed oblige social scientists to work together with philosophers. Or, alternately, oblige the philosophers to do something more than write, but that is a topic for another time.

Wandering men are not lost men, as well we know. So too are wandering disciplines not lost disciplines. Social work and social sciences, deeply beneficial and powerful that they are, could certainly benefit from a bit of wandering into the shops of men from Plato to Poe, and from Spinoza to Sartre